Yerbut...

...thank you, TF, for this info, it's good to see a bit of science and to be able to apply some figures, but the main confusion in the maths around the "alcohol makes you fatter" theme is the suggestion that all the alcohol is metabolised. The breathaliser legislation is be based on there being alcohol on a person's breath and in their urine; alcohol that cannot have been metabolised. So if it's being excreted as alcohol, it can't have been broken down, it's emerging with all its calories (or should we say Kalories?) intact.

So in order to know just how fattening it is, we need to know how much of it's being digested (less letters that "metabolised"). It would seem (no scientific datum to hand) that the more there is in a person's body, the more that just passes through and the less that is digested. So the more you drink, and the faster you drink it, the less fattening it is (proportionally of course). If you drink twice as much, it's more fattening than half as much, but not twice as much, if you get my drift.

Happy with one of the by-products being water, C2H5OH + 3O2 = 2CO2 + 3H2O, but then why is a drinker so thirsty the morning after? Again, it must be because much of the alcohol is not digested and the kidneys need additional water to flush it through.

So, alcohol is potentially fattening, but much of it just flows through the body, leaving in its wake a feeling of well being and possibly, on occasion, a feeling of slight frailty (or in extremis, a wish to die, or at least, a promise to join the Methodists).

Also, it's much more healthy than mega-miles; at least it doesn't make me fall over as much as my neo-teetotal elder brother.

I rest my cashe (hic!).

EtU